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Fuller Lights
Up Rolling Wheels In Advance Auto Parts Series 'Firecracker 100' Elbridge, NY — Not everyone celebrates the holidays. Tim Fuller wishes every day was the Fourth of July as he dominated the Firecracker 100 at Rolling Wheels Raceway for the second straight year and earned $6,000 for his third Advance Auto Parts Super DIRT Series victory of the season. The 2004 DIRT Driver of the Year joins Bob McCreadie (7), Danny Johnson (5), Jack Johnson (5), Will Cagle (5), Brett Hearn (4) and Alan Johnson (2) as the only repeat winners in the 36-year race history. "We've had some pretty good holidays around here lately," said Fuller, 37, following his second feature win during the extended Independence Day celebration. He opened the weekend with his third triumph of the season at Brewerton Speedway on Friday, then finished second to both Scott Prentice at Fulton Speedway on Saturday and Matt Sheppard at Cayuga County Fair Speedway on Sunday before returning to victory lane at Rolling Wheels on Monday. "We're still snowballing it from last year and we have our weekly tracks pretty much dialed in right now. We've really got the whole package going on. Bob's (Faust, car owner) even here tonight on a rare visit and that makes first place even more special," said Fuller, who last year captured feature races at Brewerton, Cayuga County and Rolling Wheels during the same four-day stretch. His first two tour victories in 2005 were registered at Lowe's Dirt Track (May 25) and Cayuga County (May 29) over the Memorial Day Week. A year ago Fuller was even more decisive in his holiday jaunt at Rolling Wheels, setting the current track record (20.146 sec.) in time trials before leading all 100 laps en route to the first of four Series victories. On Monday he was still fourth fastest while Chuck Bower turned the quickest lap of 20.321 sec. for an average speed of 110.723 mph around the spacious 5/8-mile clay oval. Sussex, N.J. speedster Brett Hearn, who won the '05 Super DIRT Series opener at Rolling Wheels on May 1, timed seventh fastest and earned the pole-position start through luck of the draw. Fuller filed right behind in the third slot when the 31-car field charged under chief starter Dave Farney's initial green flag. As expected, Hearn jumped out to the early lead. Rather unexpected was the arrival of the first yellow flag 30 laps later when the no. 74 Smith Bros. Concrete car driven by Danny Johnson suffered a flat left rear tire. Fuller had diced with Vic Coffey until securing second on lap 12 and took his first lead from Hearn a dozen laps later. While Fuller preferred the low line in the no. m1 MBF Racing-B&F General Machine/TEO machine, Hearn found the high side to his liking throughout most of the event in his own no. 3 Page Trucking/TEO mount. On the lap 35 restart Hearn regained the point from Fuller as they raced side by side under the frontstetch flagger's stand. "Any time there's a caution when Brett's around you know he's going to come out of it with some kind of advantage," Fuller said. "He's always dialing in the car and knows what he needs to make it work better given enough time. He just ran right by me on the restart but I was still comfortable with the car once we got more laps in." Back under green flag conditions Fuller shadowed the 'corporate jet' until once again ducking low to force the final lead change as the two TEO machines straddled the stripe to complete lap 44. Hearn made a rare miscue on lap 49, sliding high off the track in turn one to drop into fourth and at the midway mark Troyer Team driver Jimmy Phelps settled into second ahead of Matt Sheppard, Hearn and early season Series points leader Pat Ward. The top-ten running order remained intact for much of the second half with the exception of defending Hoosier Tire-Sunoco Race Fuels Mr. DIRT champion Gary Tomkins and 1998 overall DIRT big-block Modified points king Billy Decker. Before the feature race even began Tomkins relinquished his fifth-place assignment as a faulty starter required his no. 1 Elaine James Motorsports mount to be pushed on to the track where he picked up last in the field. Halfway through the century grind Decker ran seventh after starting 13th while Tomkins rallied into 11th yet was hardly content despite improving 20 places. With 40 to go Tomkins had caught Decker and when the second caution period arrived on lap 68 due to a spin by Central New York runner Steve Hulsizer, the pair was scored seventh and eighth respectively as only 15 cars remained on the lead lap. Before the action resumed, Vic Coffey slowed to a stop in turn two. The track was quickly cleared yet on the first green flag lap third-place runner Sheppard suddenly slowed in turn three with front suspension damage to incur the third and final caution. When the dust cleared Decker was contending for a top-five finish with Tomkins ready to unleash a late-race attack. Decker swept around Ward to secure fourth-place with 15 laps left while Tomkins crept into sixth past Bower with still 10 to go and disposed of Ward four laps later. Decker sped past third-place Hearn on lap 97 and Tomkins mirrored the maneuver the following circuit. Coming down to take the checkered flag, Fuller had opened up a half straightaway advantage over Phelps with Tomkins edging Decker for third at the line and Hearn hanging on for fifth. "Without radios you're never quite sure where anybody is out there anymore," said Fuller, following his eighth feature win of the season. After pacing the entire DIRT organization last year with 18 big-block wins, the Edwards, N.Y. wheelman trails only Alan Johnson (9) near the midway mark of the 2005 campaign. "I had one of my guys signaling to stay low at the end so I kept the car inside and avoided any surprizes." Fuller remains the only repeat winner in the first seven Advance Auto Parts SDS events, with two more top-five tallies giving him a tour best total of five. For runner-up Phelps, it was his first top-five feature finish since taking over for Chad Brachmann in the no. 98h Mohawk Northeast-New England Race Fuels/Troyer ride in mid-June. "I couldn't be much happier, the car was just awesome tonight," said Phelps, who, steered the only Troyer chassis to qualify for the 100-lap main event. "The crew just did everything right tonight, Billy Colton and the guys from H&H deserve all the credit for hitting on the set-up. We ran so good for so long I thought we had something for Tim at the end but he was a little bit better. The track got narrow at the end so we're satisfied with a solid second-place run." Tomkins needed all 100 laps to complete his charge from 31st to third, nipping Decker on the final circuit to conclude his bonzai run. "I finally had a car we could win with and something still managed to go wrong," said Tomkins, who joined Fuller in leap-frogging over sixth-place finsiher Pat Ward in the Series points standings. "Woulda, coulda, shoulda, we still finished third and there's nothing you can do about that. We're really happy with two good finishes after getting a freshened motor back. A lot can happen in so many Series races so we're happy to stay near the front despite all the early setbacks." Lebanon Valley Speedway extends the Fourth of July holiday festivities as the West Lebanon, N.Y. oval hosts the 30th Budweiser 100 Mr. DIRT Track USA title race July 7. Advance Auto Parts Modified Super DIRT Series – Rolling Wheels Raceway, July 4, 2005 Firecracker 100 Event Summary [*Official box score posted on www.dirtmotorsports.com and can be viewed by first selecting 'DIRT NorthEast' on the corporate homepage then clicking 'Advance' logo on homepage] FEATURE FIN STR CAR# DRIVER *Began last after requiring a push start. DID NOT QUALIFY(11) Lap leaders: Hearn (1-23), Fuller (24-34), Hearn (35-43), Fuller (44-100). Bert Hard Charger: Gary Tomkins. QUALIFYING FAST AVE TIME MPH CAR# DRIVER +Time Disallowed due to weight infraction. Heat Races (8 laps, top 4 finishers transferred to
feature, top 2 went to re-draw) ADVANCE AUTO PARTS MODIFIED SUPER DIRT SERIES POINT
STANDINGS Skidmarks: * It was recently announced that DIRT MotorSports will be relocating its operation offices from Colorado Springs, Colorado to the corporate headquarters in Norman, Oklahoma. Led by Shane Carson, race event promoter and sprint car driver with more than 27 years’ industry experience, who has been named VP Race Operations, several key management and staff within the operations office |